The Windup Girl

Anderson Lake is a company man, AgriGen's Calorie Man in Thailand. Under cover as a factory manager, Anderson combs Bangkok's street markets in search of foodstuffs thought to be extinct, hoping to reap the bounty of history's lost calories. There, he encounters Emiko...Emiko is the Windup Girl, a strange and beautiful creature. One of the New People, Emiko is not human; instead, she is an engineered being, creche-grown and programmed to satisfy the decadent whims of a Kyoto businessman.

Flight Behavior

Dellarobia Turnbow is a restless farm wife who gave up her own plans when she accidentally became pregnant at 17. Now, after a decade of domestic disharmony on a failing farm, she encounters a shocking sight: a silent, forested valley filled with what looks like a lake of fire. She can only understand it as a cautionary miracle, but it sparks a raft of other explanations from scientists, religious leaders, and the media.

Station Eleven

An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.

Oryx and Crake

As the story opens, Snowman is sleeping in a tree, mourning the loss of his beloved Oryx and his best friend Crake, and slowly starving to death. How did everything fall apart so quickly? Why is he left with nothing but his haunting memories? Alone except for the green-eyed Children of Crake, he explores the answers to these questions in the double journey he takes - into his own past, and back to Crake's high-tech bubble-dome, where the Paradice Project unfolded and the world came to grief.

The Water Knife

In the American Southwest, Nevada, Arizona, and California skirmish for dwindling shares of the Colorado River. Into the fray steps Angel Velasquez, detective, leg breaker, assassin, and spy. A Las Vegas water knife, Angel "cuts" water for his boss, Catherine Case, ensuring that her lush, luxurious arcology developments can bloom in the desert, so the rich can stay wet while the poor get nothing but dust.

Under a Tell-Tale Sky: Disruption, Book 1

When a massive solar flare fries the electrical grid, Captain Jordan Hughes' problems are just starting. Stranded far from home with a now-priceless cargo of fuel and a restless crew, Hughes weighs his options as violence worsens ashore and the world crumbles around the secure little world of his ship, the Pecos Trader.

The Bone Clocks

Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.

Solar

Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard is fast approaching 60, a mere shell of the academic titan he once was. While his fifth marriage falls apart, Michael suddenly finds himself with an unexpected opportunity to reinvigorate his career and possibly save humankind from the growing threat of global warming.

Ship Breaker

In America's Gulf Coast region, where grounded oil tankers are being broken down for parts, Nailer, a teenage boy, works the light crew, scavenging for copper wiring just to make quota - and hopefully live to see another day. But when, by luck or chance, he discovers an exquisite clipper ship beached during a recent hurricane, Nailer faces the most important decision of his life: Strip the ship for all it's worth or rescue its lone survivor, a beautiful and wealthy girl who could lead him to a better life.

Sand: Omnibus Edition

We live across the thousand dunes with grit in our teeth and sand in our homes. No one will come for us. No one will save us. This is our life, diving for remnants of the old world so that we may build what the wind destroys. No one is looking down on us. Those constellations in the night sky? Those are the backs of gods we see.

Home - A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Adventure: The Traveler, Volume 1

Five years after a pneumonic plague killed two-thirds of the world's population, army veteran Marcus Battle is isolated. He's alone with his guns, his food, and the graves of his wife and child. Unaware of the chaos that's befallen everything outside of his central Texas ranch land, Marcus lives a Spartan life. If anyone steps onto his property, he shoots first and never asks questions. But when a woman in distress, chased by marauders, seeks asylum, Marcus has a decision to make.

Invasion: Alien Invasion, Book 1

They are coming. The countdown has begun. First visible only as blips on a telescope image, the discovery of objects approaching from Jupiter's orbit immediately sets humanity on edge. NASA doesn't even bother to deny the alien ships' existence. The popular Astral space app (broadcasting from the far side of the moon and accessible by anyone with Internet) has already shown the populace what is coming.

The Whites: A Novel

Back in the run-and-gun days of the mid-'90s, when Billy Graves worked in the South Bronx as part of an anticrime unit known as the Wild Geese, he made headlines by accidentally shooting a 10-year-old boy while stopping an angel-dusted berserker in the street. Branded as a cowboy by his higher-ups, for the next 18 years Billy endured one dead-end posting after another.

The Heart Goes Last: A Novel

Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of an economic and social collapse. Job loss has forced them to live in their car, leaving them vulnerable to roving gangs. They desperately need to turn their situation around - and fast. The Positron Project in the town of Consilience seems to be the answer to their prayers. No one is unemployed, and everyone gets a comfortable, clean house to live in...for six months out of the year. On alternating months, residents of Consilience must leave their homes and function as inmates.

Agent to the Stars

The space-faring Yherajk have come to Earth to meet us and to begin humanity's first interstellar friendship. There's just one problem: They're hideously ugly and they smell like rotting fish. So getting humanity's trust is a challenge. The Yherajk need someone who can help them close the deal. Enter Thomas Stein, who knows something about closing deals. He's one of Hollywood's hottest young agents.

A Little History of Philosophy

Philosophy begins with questions about the nature of reality and how we should live. These were the concerns of Socrates, who spent his days in the ancient Athenian marketplace asking awkward questions, disconcerting the people he met by showing them how little they genuinely understood. This engaging book introduces the great thinkers in Western philosophy and explores their most compelling ideas about the world and how best to live in it.

Mort(e): A Novel

Former house cat turned war hero Mort(e) is famous for taking on the most dangerous missions and fighting the dreaded human bioweapon EMSAH. But the true motivation behind Mort(e)'s recklessness is his ongoing search for a pretransformation friend - a dog named Sheba. When he receives a mysterious message from the dwindling human resistance claiming Sheba is alive, he begins a journey that will take him from the remaining human strongholds to the heart of the Colony.

Trust No One: X-Files, Book 1

We all want to believe. The truth is still out there. The X-Files have been reopened. IDW Publishing and series creator Chris Carter have authorized new investigations into the weird, the strange, and the mysterious. New York Times best-selling author and multiple Bram Stoker Award winner Jonathan Maberry brings together some of today's top storytellers for a series of anthologies featuring all-new stories from the X-Files. Scully and Mulder continue their journey into darkness as they face aliens, monsters, shadow governments, and twisted conspiracies.

Gravity's Rainbow

Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.

Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, renowned historian Margaret MacMillan's best-selling Paris 1919 is the story of six remarkable months that changed the world. At the close of WWI, between January and July of 1919, delegates from around the world converged on Paris under the auspices of peace. New countries were created, old empires were dissolved, and for six months, Paris was the center of the world.

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Winner of the 1961 Hugo Award for Best Novel and widely considered one of the most accomplished, powerful, and enduring classics of modern speculative fiction, Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz is a true landmark of 20th-century literature—a chilling and still-provocative look at a postapocalyptic future.

Red Mars

Winner of the Nebula Award for Best Novel, Red Mars is the first book in Kim Stanley Robinson's best-selling trilogy. Red Mars is praised by scientists for its detailed visions of future technology. It is also hailed by authors and critics for its vivid characters and dramatic conflicts.

For centuries, the red planet has enticed the people of Earth. Now an international group of scientists has colonized Mars. Leaving Earth forever, these 100 people have traveled nine months to reach their new home. This is the remarkable story of the world they create - and the hidden power struggles of those who want to control it.

How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics

What is math? And how exactly does it work? In How to Bake Pi, math professor Eugenia Cheng provides an accessible introduction to the logic of mathematics - sprinkled throughout with recipes for everything from crispy duck to cornbread - that illustrates to the general listener the beauty of math.

Swan Song

Facing down an unprecedented malevolent enemy, the government responds with a nuclear attack. America as it was is gone forever, and now every citizen - from the President of the United States to the homeless on the streets of New York City - will fight for survival. In a wasteland born of rage and fear, populated by monstrous creatures and marauding armies, earth's last survivors have been drawn into the final battle between good and evil, that will decide the fate of humanity.

Audible Editor Reviews

Editors Select, May 2013 - I was interested in Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow because it sounded like an off-centered, dark, and altogether odd story. What I’ve read so far has proven me right, but there’s so much more to be discovered that I’m thoroughly intrigued by what lies ahead. Mitchell Zukoff is in the insurance business, and a recent catastrophe has driven a huge demand for his work. He’s good at selling fear because he himself is intensely fearful – of carbon monoxide poisoning, tidal waves, fault lines, and other disasters and their probabilities. While Rich’s tone gives a sense of impending doom, there is an optimistic lightness in Mitchell’s unusual correspondence with an old friend, and it’s this light/dark contrast that I find most interesting about the book so far. I’m also very interested to hear what narrator Kirby Heybourne does with this book, as his performances of Gone Girl and Cloud Atlas are loved by our listeners. Chris, Audible Editor

Publisher's Summary

New York City, the near future: Mitchell Zukor, a gifted young mathematician, is hired by a mysterious new financial consulting firm, FutureWorld. The business operates out of an empty office in the Empire State Building; Mitchell is employee number two. He is asked to calculate worst-case scenarios in the most intricate detail, and his schemes are sold to corporations to indemnify them against any future disasters. This is the cutting edge of corporate irresponsibility, and business is booming. As Mitchell immerses himself in the mathematics of catastrophe - ecological collapse, war games, natural disasters - he becomes obsessed by a culture's fears.

Yet he also loses touch with his last connection to reality: Elsa Bruner, a friend with her own apocalyptic secret, who has started a commune in Maine. Then, just as Mitchell's predictions reach a nightmarish crescendo, an actual worst-case scenario overtakes Manhattan. Mitchell realizes he is uniquely prepared to profit. But at what cost?

At once, an all-too-plausible literary thriller, an unexpected love story, and a philosophically searching inquiry into the nature of fear, Nathaniel Rich's Odds Against Tomorrow poses the ultimate questions of imagination and civilization. The future is not quite what it used to be.

What the Critics Say

"It is almost impossible to read this novel without indelible images of Hurricane Sandy coming to mind. The novel succeeds on its own terms in envisioning such a disaster in terrifyingly visceral terms. And Mitchell's intensely fraught journey from man of intellect to man of action is one the [listener] will not soon forget." (Publishers Weekly)

"Let's just, right away, recognize how prescient this charming, terrifying, comic novel of apocalyptic manners is...Rich is a gifted caricaturist and a gifted apocalyptist. His descriptions of the vagaries of both nature and human nature are stark, fresh, and convincing, full of surprise and recognition as both good comedy and good terror must be." (The New York Review of Books)

"This literary thriller is blessed with a propulsive plot, macabre humor, several richly developed characters, and serious ethical and philosophical issues, all lightly clothed in skillful writing. Highly recommended." (Booklist)

Rich has written an apocalypse for today’s thinking man, for Wall Street Bankers, for capitalist America. He’s written this book for everyone who keeps working even after their office fire alarm goes off. This book is funny, weird, and dark. It approaches apocalypse from a totally different angle, and different is good. Odds Against Tomorrow is also a lesser time investment than some of the classic apocalyptic fiction (The Stand, Swan Song) at 10 hours listening time.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Mitchell's character and obsessions are the most interesting. The details of settling the swamp are less so.

What does Kirby Heyborne bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

He's a fine reader, but I don't think I would feel differently if I read the book.

Could you see Odds Against Tomorrow being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

No.

Any additional comments?

Interesting conceit. Mitchell's rise in the world of greed and finance is well done and fun to read. There's no great life-changing message, but the book was entertaining and diverting, perfect beach reading.

As a story, much of this is soggy and meandering. But it turns out to be enjoyable for my purposes. I'm not much of a novel reader: maybe one every 4 years. But I am immersing in serious risk management books aplenty (which audible hasn't shown much interest in producing; oh well. Exception: Nassim Taleb's works are here). What this book does for me, on my breaks from the dry risk management books, is toss the concepts around in colorful and shocking little ways and images. So it is a perfect counterpoint to my studies. This writing style reminds me much of Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club): the author has a keen ear for technical language and concepts, and nimbly reels off strange, surreal, but plausible (possible, but extremely improbable) images and scenes via drolly reciting odd lists of sometimes banal things. It is a sort of nerd noir. Here, there are holes: the main character often does things a supposed risk management genius would see through and not do; the business dealings and legal constructs are often implausible; Manhattan finance people are not this gullible or ignorant (we can only hope). But that doesn't keep the piece from being entertaining, often just in a weird scene glimpsed inside one sentence, that may actually provoke some creative risk thinking and imagination.

A better story-line. I avoid sci-fi and dystopian stories, but this one somehow made it past the radar. Not exactly sci-fi, but the monster hurricane that destroys NYC is close. (Hurricane Sandy was a blinking neon sign throughout.) Most of the book had an active plot-line that kept you engaged, until the last quarter, when it petered out. Protagonist is an uninteresting, unpleasant and unlikable person with little character development. I don't know what the point of this book is, or what message the author was trying to send.

Has Odds Against Tomorrow turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes, once I figure out what the genre is

What does Kirby Heyborne bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?